Nominations and Awards

Conchita Wurst‘s victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 has made her an overnight star across Europe – and she has now similar levels of success for her music on Spotify.

Since her winning performance at Eurovision, fans have listened to her music more than a million times on Spotify.

If you are a Conchita Wurst fan, you can not only find her official profile on Spotify, but also delve into her personal music collection, which includes a number of playlists including La Musica Conchita, DIVA and Disney (a playlist of her favourite Disney tracks).

We can’t believe it’s already that time of year. Time to reflect on what’s been an amazing twelve months in music.

Hit rewind with our Year in Review, and join us on an interactive adventure through space and time. From the wide Spotify Universe, right down to you and your personal year in music.

We celebrate the frankly jaw-dropping 4.5 billion hours of music streamed on Spotify this year. And reveal the artists and tracks that took the world by storm. We share some fun Spotifacts from across the globe. Finally, we show you the music that made your 2013, in your very own Year in Review.

Thank you for being part of our year. Here’s to sharing many more musical moments in 2014!

Following tonight’s live house party on Spotify with Sebastian Ingrosso and Alesso, we caught up with Sebastian to ask a few questions. Check it out below!

So, how do you feel? Happy with tonight’s house party?

Absolutely! The most important part for me is to constantly interact with my fans, and this was an innovative and cool way of doing so. We played a lot of good music and the listeners could vote on what to hear next and chat with us. It was great to play our new song “Calling” as well!

It was awesome that so many of our fans joined us and we hope they had as much fun as Alesso and I did!

It seems like a good way to interact and chat with your fans.

Oh, it’s a blast! It’s always nice to be able to use new technology and social media as a way to reach out to our fans. Tonight they even got the chance to participate and decide what music we played, which is even cooler. Plus, we get the chance to reach out to a much wider audience, whether they are at a pre-party or in the basement of their mother’s house – Stockholm, Amsterdam or London? It doesn’t matter!

A large chunk of tonight’s audience dream of becoming DJs themselves, what’s your advice to all those who want to become the next Ingrosso?

Becoming a DJ takes a lot of time and it won’t come overnight, you have to do your own thing and never give up. I’ve been doing this for over ten years and I’m still evolving. You have to find your own unique style and that takes time.

Remember, there are so many people out there who want to become DJs. It might be easier to get started with all the technological development, but ultimately it’s not enough to be able to beatmix to become a good DJ, it’s about having fun, having a feeling for the music and the audience you’re playing for. You have to feel what gets them dancing!

Who’s your ideal pre-party guest?

My friends, because I don’t see them enough! But yeah, it would be really cool to sit and chat with someone like Paul McCartney and listen to the same music and have a beer together!

What do you think is the future for artists wanting to connect with fans?

That’s impossible to predict – just look at how much everything has changed in the past five years! I just hope a lot of cool new ways appear, because the fans are the most important thing for me.

You can listen to all songs recorded during the event by clicking the link below!

Sigur Rós have created a listening party within a dedicated room on Soundrop, the Spotify App app. The new album Valtari will feature on the first day with the rest of their catalogue being added each day until Sunday, culminating in a playlist with the 20 most popular tracks as voted for by fans.

It is Monday and time for a new playlist! First band out this week is a two piece indie pop band from Sweden; “Palpitation” with their song “Ready Set Go”. A nice dreamy start on a new week!

We continue with “Peter & Kerry” and their song “The Shadows” from their latest EP “Clothes, Friends, Photos”. And then time for “Eternal Summers”. “Millions” is the first song from the band’s forthcoming full-length LP “Correct Behavior” (coming out in July)

“Rebekka Karijord” just came out with a new single “Use My Body While It´s Still Young”. Like always very nice lyrics and an amazing vocal.

Last song in this weeks playlist is by an American indie pop band; “Throw Me The Statue”. I really like their song “Lolita” from their debut album Moonbeams (2007).

Monday and time for a new playlist! First band out this week is a Swedish indie pop trio; “Little Majorette” with their song “A Swansea Love Story”. A very catchy song and a very nice female vocal.
We continue with yet another Swedish favorite: Malmoe based “This is Head” with their song “0011”.

Third band out this week is “The Shins” and their song “The Rifle’s Spiral” from their latest album “Port of Morrow” (2012). If you have not already done so, you should take the time and listen trough the rest of the album too. It is as most of the music critics are saying, packed with a lot of great music.

Next one out this week is one of my favorite singer-songwriter of all times: the amazing “Damien Rice” with his song “Dogs”. I’m sure most of you know Damien from before but if you don’t, you will get a very nice introduction by listening trough his album “O” from 2002. A little mellow but such an amazing album!

Last band out in this week’s Music Monday playlist is an indie pop band from Manhattan, New York.
“Cults” with their catchy song “Abducted”.

If you have song suggestion for next week’s playlist feel free to drop them in my Spotify Inbox.

We’re very excited to report that Spotify has been nominated for two People’s Voice Awards at this year’s The Webby Awards! We’re up in the ‘Website: Music’ and in the ‘Mobile & Apps: Music’ categories.

Add your voice and vote for us as your favourite music website and app! Voting closes tomorrow so be sure to make your mark today.

Yes, today sees Germany become the thirteenth member of the Spotify family. Our German friends can choose from three great Spotify services – from absolutely free to paid subscriptions.

Spotify Free – the unsurpassed free music service. Enjoy free, on-demand access to millions of songs on your computer. No gimmicks. Just listen and love it, month after month.

Spotify Unlimited – all the special features of our free service, but with uninterrupted, ad-free access to Spotify on your computer. All for only 4.99EUR a month.

Spotify Premium – the top-of-the-range Spotify experience. Premium gives you access to all the music, all the time. Listen online, offline, on your computer, your mobile phone and a whole heap of other devices. Enjoy enhanced sound quality and access to exclusive content, competitions and special offers. Premium costs just 9.99EUR.

It’s now been three short months since we introduced everybody to Spotify Apps.

The apps have opened the door to a whole new world of music discovery and engagement for our users, who have now spent a total of 1500 years within the apps since their launch.

A few highlights

Soundrop lets you discover, listen to and share music with friends in ‘rooms’ created by genre or theme. Users listened together to 15 million songs in February alone – the equivalent of our entire catalogue, or 100 years’ of music.

Visitors to Tunewiki can sing along to the lyrics of the song they’re playing. Users have now edited or synced more than 100,000 songs in the ‘wiki’, helping create content for others to enjoy and sing along to.

Moodagent, which gives you instant playlists to match your mood, generates over 3.5 million playlists a week, with the ‘Happy Quick’ mood proving to be twice as popular as ‘Angry’ mood.

And SpotOn Radio, which was built on the Spotify mobile platform, went all the way to number six on the Swedish iPhone app store.

It’s been a great start. Watch out for more exciting news regarding Spotify Apps coming very soon!